A hearing
was held on October 30, 1997, in Bozeman, Montana, on petitioner Kathy
Fitch’s (claimant) motion for a protective order prohibiting respondent
Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Company (Liberty) from contacting prospective
witnesses and from conducting further video surveillance. During the
hearing, claimant alleged discrepancies in the surveillance videotape
offered to the Court as Hearing Exhibits 6-8. Liberty responded that
the alleged discrepancies complained of by claimant were due to splicing
the original surveillance tapes into the videotapes offered at the
hearing, but that no changing or editing had been done to the surveillance
tapes.

At the conclusion
of the hearing, the Court ordered Liberty to produce copies of all
the original surveillance tapes, in VHS format, so that the Court
could view them and determine if claimant’s allegations of tampering
had merit. Liberty subsequently filed five videotapes with the Court
per my request at the hearing.

After viewing
all five videotapes, the Court finds only one discrepancy, and this
discrepancy requires explanation. Specifically, in Tape 1 during surveillance
of claimant at the car wash on September 23, 1997, the videotape jumps
from 7:29 p.m., on September 23, 1997 to 1:50 p.m., on September 25,
1997 and back to 7:30 p.m on September 23, 1997 in rapid succession.
Since I had previously ordered exact copies of the original, unedited
surveillance tapes, this jump in sequence requires an explanation.

THEREFORE,
IT IS ORDERED that Liberty submit to the Court:

1. An explanation
of how the VHS videotape submitted to the Court was made, including
whether the videotape was made directly from the camera tapes or was
copied from the camera tapes to video and then recopied for the Court;
and

2. An explanation
of the discrepancy in the videotape and an explanation of how the
surveillance sequence in Tape 1 came to be out of order on the videotapes
submitted to the Court in compliance with the Court’s order at the
conclusion of the October 30, 1997 hearing.